


Sounds Like Settling Down

by musiclily88



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Beaches, Best Friends, F/M, Family, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Nostalgia, OT5 Friendship, Seaside, Small Towns, Summer, Summer Vacation, Vacation, best friend - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 06:04:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2056623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musiclily88/pseuds/musiclily88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their summers seem to have gone on forever—not the summers themselves, really, but Zayn doesn’t really recall that <em> first </em> summer. He might have been six or eight, maybe,  but the years run together when he tries to think about it. All he knows is he’s sick of sitting in his parents’ hatchback, all too ready to leap out without pausing to unpack, too focused on meeting back up with his boys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sounds Like Settling Down

**Author's Note:**

> Summertime seaside vacation. Friends to lovers. I needed more practice writing low-stakes conflict and fluff.
> 
> So I was reading Broken Harbor by Tana French, which is a murder mystery set in Ireland. It has almost nothing to do with this story, except that there’s a small background detail about an ice cream shop in a vacation town is going to get shut down. That spawned this.
> 
> xx

Their summers seem to have gone on forever—not the summers themselves, really, but Zayn doesn’t really recall that _first_ summer. He might have been six or eight, maybe, but the years run together when he tries to think about it. All he knows is he’s sick of sitting in his parents’ hatchback, all too ready to leap out without pausing to unpack, too focused on meeting back up with his boys.

His mum, of course, demands a cursory half-hour of lugging baggage and putting things away in their rental unit—after which he pounds away without a good-bye, yanking a cig packet from his pocket gleefully. He heads straight for Liam’s caravan by the beach, the spot he and his family have stayed at for at least as many summers as Zayn and his. He knocks, the sound echoing in a plastic, hollow way throughout the caravan. Then he waits, some kind of inexplicable _itch_ playing at his throat.

Liam throws open the door and launches himself at Zayn without shutting it again, nearly tackling him to the ground in a full-body hug. Their hips slam together, their legs slot in between one another, and Zayn forgets how to breathe. Liam’s arms clamp around him with new strength, muscles filled out and body taut.

“Hi, bro, hi, I was going mental with boredom, thank god you’re here! My sisters are both out with their boyfriends and my mum went to the shops while my dad tries to fish.”

Zayn grins hard, cheeks nearly cramping up right away. “And you decided to chill here to wait for me?”

Liam falters. “Well I mean, your text said you lot were arriving today, plus I have a wicked sunburn on my back so probably shouldn’t be on the beach—”

“I’m just being a tit, ignore me.” Zayn flushes.

“Couldn’t if I tried,” Liam counters, rolling his eyes, and Zayn feels he might be stumbling onto something important. He ignores it.

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, I’m gagging for a shake. Let’s head to RayRay’s?”

Liam grants him a wide, crinkle-eyed grin. “Let’s go.” He turns to shut the door and lock it up as Zayn lights up a second cigarette to give his hands something to do. His eyes, without prompting, note the red at the back of Liam’s neck. He swallows hard before sucking in a deep drag of smoke.

Liam turns around and snorts.

“What?”

“Mr. Smokes-in-the-boys-loo wants a milkshake?”

“Milkshakes are delicious, and what’s your point?” Zayn looks down at himself, noting the black tee, the black slim-legged jeans, the ratty Converses.

“Last summer you didn’t have quite so many—tattoos.” Liam waved vaguely.

“Last summer I didn’t have any—”

“Exactly.”

Zayn looks down at his arm, littered with lots of marks, some meaningful, some silly—some he once thought were meaningful but which now look childish. “They’re nothing much.”

“Dude, they’re _sick,_ what are you going on about?”

“Dunno, nothing. Forgot you hadn’t seen them, I guess.”

They walk in companionable silence, periodically bumping their shoulders together and laughing lightly. Zayn’s voice catches in his throat once, thick with unspoken—unspoken what? _Unspoken longing,_ says a voice in the back of his head. He shushes it. Breeze hits him, cooling the heat at the back of his neck. He catches his breath slowly.

“Summertime,” Liam half-sings, half-hums, “and the living’s easy.”

Zayn chuckles. “It’s the life, innit? It’s like—I don’t have to _do_ anything. At home, like, during the year, I have all my courses and my fucking _job_ and working for the paper and Pe—just all of it. I’m not explaining it very well.”

“Sure. I can like, breathe here. Not worry ‘bout uni apps or football. I mean I still train or whatever, running on the beach, but it’s all like. Mellow.”

“Yeah, that’s, yeah.” He nods. “That’s it.”

“A way with words, I’ve got,” Liam says with a snort.

“Really? Because all your texts are just full of gibberish and seventeen exclamation points.”

Liam ruffles Zayn’s hair before ducking away to avoid Zayn’s punch. “Don’t you lie to me, I’m onto your secrets. You have a special ringtone picked out for me and everything. What is it, eh? _Suit and Tie_ ?”

“No, it’s _Wiggle._ That song really speaks to me on a deep level.”

“Never took you for an arse man. Interesting.” Liam pulls a sideways shimmy, nearly tripping over a kerb and onto the street.

“Careful, dickhead,” Zayn mutters, rolling his eyes and grabbing the back of Liam’s tee to pull him back onto the pavement. “Know when the other lads arrive?”

“Lou’s family is here but he’s not coming down for two days because he had to re-sit an exam or sommat. Haz is due tonight and Ni’s coming tomorrow sometime. Stuck with me for now.”

“Yeah, you and RayRay. Match made in diabetic heaven.”

Liam shrugs and lopes forward easily, opening the door to the ice cream shop wordlessly. He inhales deeply and closes his eyes. “Sugar cones,” he mutters, heaving out a gentle sigh. “Never gets old.”

Zany rolls his eyes but offers to buy Liam his ice cream anyhow. He considers it a small sacrifice at the altar of something like love.

***

“No, but like, you know,” Niall crows, lurching around the moonlit beach with a lit spliff in one hand, “there are endless amounts of things you can do with potatoes. Endless amounts, there’s no end to the amount of potatoes!”

Louis cackles, lurching backward with the force of his laughter. “Tell that to the billions of your brethren lost to the famine, bebs.”

Niall sobers quickly. “Don’t you school me on that shite, that is serious talk, here. I will fecking fight you.”

“All right, all right,” Harry adds placatingly, pulling both Niall and Louis into his lap. “Not a lotta love going on right now, let’s focus.”

“Focus on what?” Zayn asks, not unreasonably, from his spot a little ways away, up in a sand dune. “What was it we were supposed to be talking about, exactly?”

“Updates, lads, updates. Epic love stories, blood shed, battles won, virginities lost?” Harry reminds him with a bright smile.

Liam, who one moment before was attempting to perform a headstand, unceremoniously falls over. Niall begins cackling as Louis scrambles out of Harry’s lap looking startled. “Haz! You’ve been holding out on us, huh? Got salacious tales of fumbling blowies you haven’t shared?” Louis calls loudly, kicking Harry in the shin gently. “I am angry.”

“Jealous, more like,” Zayn mutters, watching Liam flop onto the sand.

“How very dare you, I am hoovering up the blowjobs, yeah? Left and right and all over the place,” Louis counters

“You’re what now?” Harry asks coldly.

_“Anyway,”_ Niall barks, “I’d assume Zed has a story or two, right mate? With P—”

“No. I don’t have any,” Zayn says quickly. “What about you and your _girlfriend?”_ he adds in a sing-song voice, distraction chief in his mind.

Niall’s face reddens, rolling sideways out of Harry’s lap. “She’s good.”

Louis snorts. “What the hell, Ni. You’re acting more awkward than when Haz was boning his mum’s coworker.”

“Lou! Caroline and I weren’t—that’s not what happened!”

“Really? It _sounded_ like that’s what happened.”

“Sounded like that from who exactly? Someone confused about the meaning of friendship?” Harry asks, eyes wide and tone incredulous.

Liam stands up and dusts himself off, brows knitting together. “Do you two need a minute or something?”

“Absolutely not.” Louis bends over to retrieve the bottle of lukewarm vodka he abandoned in the sand, face thunderous.

“Hey did you guys hear about RayRay?” Niall interrupts, moving to his knees as he takes another hit of the spliff. Zayn closes his eyes, noting a biting tension in the cool summertime air. He breathes in as he listens to Liam respond.

“What about her?”

Zayn lets the breeze and Niall’s stray smoke waft over him, feels himself settling in deep to the sand and the sound of the sea. He plants one hand beside his body, poking his fingers into the grit, letting the dirty feeling of it ground him. “What about her?” he wonders aloud, echoing Liam’s question. _What about her, what about you, what about us?_ his brain adds, hazy with pot smoke and a touch of mania. What about all of them.

“She was saying something about whoever owns the property, like the shop, you know, she was saying he’s being a huge dick and wants to hike up the rent and she doesn’t know how much longer she and her family can keep it open if he does that,” Niall babbles, settling down to pass the spliff to Louis.

“What?” Zayn mumbles slowly, Niall’s words eking in.

_“What?”_ Liam snaps next rounding on the crowd of them. “What do you mean?”

“Like she and her wife are doing fine as is but what he’s asking for is apparently just insane, and he doesn’t get it like ‘cause he’s not a local, you know?” Niall explains.

“None—we’re not locals either and we would never do that,” Liam says slow, eyes narrowed.

“Guess we’re not dicks, innit,” Louis responds, shaking his head sadly.

“Bro,” Liam breathes. His voice, with just the tiniest hint of sharp, hot fear, sends a thrill through Zayn, which he represses as best he can.

“What?” Zayn asks quietly. His voice holds a tremor he wants to hide.

“That’s, like, really fucked up.”

“It is.”

“What are we going to do about it?”

***

The next morning Zayn is shoved awake by his sister who loudly announces that Liam is downstairs eating Zayn’s breakfast. He groans and tumbles awkwardly to his feet, grousing about early mornings and cheerful people.

“Whatever,” Safaa responds, rolling her eyes. “He’s your boyfriend, not mine. _You_ take it up with him.”

Stunned, Zayn gets no time to respond before she leaves the room with a twirl of her dark, shiny hair. He huffs, wishing he could be the astute one in the family, rather than just the only boy. He pulls a ratty pair of skinnies over the boxers he wore to sleep, throwing on one of his favorite tees overtop, proclaiming _thank you fuck you have a nice day!_ to the entire world.

He bounds into the kitchen gruffly, projecting an air of sleep deprivation and the desperate need for a cigarette (or so he hopes). Liam hands him a cup of tea wordlessly, still tucking into a plate of eggs and sausage.

“It’s too early for that much enthusiasm, especially over breakfast.”

“Lies. Also I’m teaching you to swim today.”

“Nope.”

“Today’s the day.”

“It isn’t, though.”

“It is. And we need to work up an appetite if we’re going to RayRay’s at least twice today.”

“Can’t we just eat ice cream and have nothing to do with the water instead? And why are we going there twice? Does she need your help with something?” Zayn scrunches up his nose, remembering the litany of unnecessary chores Liam volunteered himself for during various summers, not least of which involved heavy carpentry.

“We need to help her save the shop, Z. That’s what we need to do.”

“You’re giving me an assignment for the summer? Really?”

“You love Ray, Zayn.”

“I know.”

“And you love ice cream more than not, which isn’t up for debate, right?”

“No.”

“Then this isn’t going to be hard.”

“But we both know this isn’t going to be as simple as just eating ice cream once a day, Li.”

“Twice a day.”

“You’re going to make me make posters and do crowd-funding and try to find some kind of low-interest loan, okay. And that’s, like, that’s no. That’s just no.”

Liam sighs. “We’re just going to go get milkshakes, like, twice a day. That’s the extent of this underdog story.”

Zayn, because he has known Liam for years and years, does not believe him. “Mhm.”

And for a moment he remembers younger Liam, remembers his thin chest and his health problems and his incessant desire to please. He remembers the goofy shyness and the slim shoulders and the hair that wasn’t curly yet. He remembers it all. He remembers telling Liam that he sounded like Frank Sinatra singing without even trying, told him he was going to be scary-famous someday if he wanted.

He remembers honestly stupid things he knows Liam forgets by now, remembers ridiculous fucking walks by tide pools where Liam was careful not to even so much as _splash_ him because he knew Zayn couldn’t swim.

Zayn doesn’t know when he fell in love with Liam, and that’s the biggest problem he can imagine ever facing.

_Don’t,_ he urges internally. _Don’t be so lovely and so good and don’t make me do this._

***  
“Don’t make me do this,” Zayn pleads, standing at the shoreline with a white-hot feeling of terror alight throughout his body.

“I can’t actually make you do anything, donut,” Liam points out from his resting spot ankle-deep in the salty water.

And of course that’s true enough, really, but something in the earnest pout of his stupid pillow-lips and the stubble he’s suddenly able to grow makes Zayn want to _keen._

Zayn sighs, and he gets in the water.

***

Niall is the only one left eating every single time they visit RayRay’s together, although sometimes Liam and Zayn go alone. Sometimes Liam invites Zayn’s baby sisters and every now and again Liam’s mum tags along, and sometimes Harry skips along beside them as they walk to the shop. Sometimes, also, Louis demands that he really wants to meet someone fit at the stop to have some hope of salvaging his summer and also his libido. But usually it’s just Liam and Zayn, with Liam murmuring that they are doing something important, that Ray is one of the sweetest people Liam’s ever met.

Zayn never admits that Liam is the stupid-sweetest person _he’s_ ever met, and he never wants to. But he sometimes wipes chocolate sauce off of Liam’s cheek with his thumb.

***

Zayn bites his lips before knocking on the Paynes’ caravan door, smoothing the strap of his rucksack against his shoulder. He’s decidedly nervous, and that’s very strange to him, because nerves aren’t usually what he does. He does art and reading and smoking and music. He spends time with his sisters and he helps his mother cook and he doesn’t do things like second-guess. Except for when he does. Nerves mark out the important things, his brain might tell if him is he tries listening. (He doesn’t like listening to his nerves)

And yet here he stands with a long series of guesses, along with a picnic dinner and blanket inside the bag on his back. He thinks a long series of things as he waits for the door to open as he bites the inside of his cheek.

“Beach?” is all he manages to ask when Liam answers the door, but it seems to work. Liam trails along next to him and gives him scrunch-faced glances, and Zayn does not crack at all.

What he does do is clutch at Liam’s hand, and it feels like catching a life-raft, like they’re both drifting out to sea and they have found something that might maybe, maybe save them both.

“Beach,” Liam agrees slowly, moments later when they step onto the and. “I’m not—do you get it, like I do?”

“What?” _Get what, let me have all of you, let me know._

They stay silent as Zayn sets up the picnic rug and passes Liam a beer. They stay silent as Zayn tips backwards to lie looking at the stars.

Eventually, Liam speaks, unopened bottle in one hand. “The beach is just—it’s now. And it keeps going? It’s constant. And forever. It keeps moving, and it just, it lets us just be here. We can just be here forever, and it’ll outlast us.”

And Zayn nods. He thinks a moment before adding, “It’ll let us settle down for awhile, like nothing else matters.”

“Nothing else does matter, just this and us, you know?”

He bites his lip, eyes pricking up with warmth and wet he can’t explain. “I know.”

“It’s—I don’t like not being here.”

“I know,” Zayn adds, with a quietness that startles him. Normally he finds comfort in quiet. He is often still and content to be so, but when things are important, he can be loud. He can be vibrant. But something here, inside this very moment, tells Zayn that he does not have to be vibrant or loud, that he does not have to try to make himself heard. He knows that Liam will hear him regardless. Liam likes to listen to him. “I want to be here with you,” he admits, reckless and quiet and loud.

“You are here. With me.”

“I don’t like being without you,” he amends, ducking his head down. He knows he has nothing to be ashamed of, whether he’s—bisexual or pansexual or just fucking in love with his best friend, he knows there is no shame in love. But for the life of him he will never, ever pressure him. Into anything, ever, and so this feels daring and absolutely terrifying.

“You shouldn’t…” Liam starts, but then he stutters off.

“What?”

“Shouldn’t say things like that. If you can’t. Or don’t. If you just?”

Zayn bites his lip and swallows. “I mean it, though. I want to be here with you. Just like this, and just you.”

“Oh.”

“Nothing different,” he promises. “I mean I’d be different, if I had a say, I’d do something other than be this second-guessing dork, this person ducking away from shit, never saying the right thing, but like—” he closes his eyes and sighs heavily. “We can’t control some things.”

“We can’t,” Liam agrees slowly.

“I’m sorry.”

“Please, Zee. Please don’t be sorry. Not to me.”

“I have to be.”

Liam knee-walks over to Zayn, eyelids lowered, voice rough. “You never have to be anything other than who you are,” he adds before he straddles Zayn’s legs, trapping them. He plants his hands on Zayn’s shoulders as they lever themselves back, lying onto the blanket.

“I love you.”

Liam smiles. “I know you do.” He ghosts a kiss against Zayn’s lips. “I love you too.”

“You know?”

“Yeah. I know now. For awhile I just hoped, but then I just—I dunno, somehow I knew. I know you. And I don’t need you to be different.”

Zayn snorts. “You’re—you’re different than you used to be.”

Liam heaves out a sigh but smiles a bit ruefully. “That’s not what I meant. You’re still, like, the same deep down, so am I. Just because I—”

“Look like you gained twenty pounds of muscle since last summer?”

“Took up boxing because I was sick of getting beat up like a sack of shit,” Liam corrects bitterly, rolling on his side, away from Zayn.

“Li—”

“And you never even, like. It wouldn’t even have occurred to you to look at me the way those guys did. Like I was less because I was—smaller? I guess? With a stupid haircut and a fucked-up kidney and failing grades even when I tried really, really hard.”

“Hey.” Zayn rests one hand on Liam’s hip, gripping in hard. “Where is this coming from?”

“You never saw that.”

“Should I have?” A strong shiver hits Zayn’s lower spine and he holds his breath.

“No, I don’t mean that. I mean you wouldn’t have cared. I figured that out awhile ago. You never would have looked at me any differently, you know? That’s what I mean.”

“And, just—why are you saying this now?”

“Why are you?” Liam curls back to face Zayn slowly, careful not to crush his hand.

“Because I needed you to know. It’s—something big like that deserves to be shared. And I don’t know when else to do it, other than here. Where nothing seems to change.”

“Everything changes.”

“Yeah.” Zayn bites his bottom lip, nodding slowly. “Except I think I’ve always loved you.”

“I know.”

***

Later that night, when a chill has set in from the salt water and breeze, when Zayn has ducked sideways to press his body against Liam’s, he murmurs, “I’m going to Manchester in the fall.”

Liam opens his eyes, shifting one shoulder to tuck beneath Zayn’s chin. “I thought that might happen.”

“What, um. What are you doing? Come autumn.”

He laughs lightly. “I’m torn between a lot of things. Uni and firefighting and being the next RDJ, specifically as Iron Man.”

“I think he always is like he is in Iron Man, to be fair,” Zayn reasons. “Didn’t know you wanted to act.”

“I don’t, like. Know what I want to do.”

“That’s okay. You’ve got time.”

“Not really. I already confirmed at Wolverhampton.”

“That’s good, bro, that’s awesome.”

“Thinking mechanical engineering, if it turns out I actually enjoy it there.”

“Yeah?”

Liam exhales, breath sounding quavery. “It just feels like something big is ending, and I have no idea where to go now. Or what to do.” He sighs again. “I don’t know, you know?”

“You have time. Life is full of nothing but time.”

“You say that at eighteen, but come back to be at forty-five,” he responds with a snort.

“Maybe I’ll already be with you at forty-five and I won’t need to go anywhere.”

Liam’s breath goes ragged for a moment, his nostrils flaring. But then he smiles. “And every summer we can come to the seaside, rent a place. Drink beer and fish while the kids get ice cream.”

It feels big and small and realistic, all while being terrifying and attractive. “Teach them to swim, ride bikes.”

“Swim?” Liam asks, biting his lip over a smirk. “Sounds like the best kind of plan.”

***

They try the ways they know how to save RayRay’s, and she fixes them with a sad smile each time they enter the shop. They manage very little besides prolonging the time it stays open in the summer, bringing their friends by each afternoon and evening, trying to do something else that matters.

Nightly they lie beneath the stars, along the seaside, clammy fingers linked together or knees knocking together. They make promises and the whisper beautiful words and they kiss themselves dizzy.

Zayn realizes that Liam long ago included himself among the Malik family, and Zayn himself accepts more and more dinner invitations at the Paynes’ caravan. He accepts the quiet speech Geoff gives over a pint, Liam helping his mother with the dishes; he listens to the lovely, gruff words and pretends his cheeks aren’t flushing.

“Thanks, sir,” he mumbles, letting Liam save him, letting Liam drag him outside to fix the motorbike they found in the shed on the Maliks’ property. Mostly Zayn smokes while handing Liam various tools, singing along to the radio.

Sometimes Zayn gives Ruth advice about her boyfriend, mostly because the subject gives Liam’s face a pinched look and he doesn’t have a nice word to say about the guy. She makes a habit of patting Zayn’s shoulder and saying he’s the best in-law a girl could want.

Zayn grips Liam’s hand for five minutes apiece every time Ruth compliments him.

***

“I don’t—I don’t think we can fix this,” Liam mutters as he and the boys leave RayRay’s at closing on a Thursday evening toward the tail-end of August.

Niall, staring intently at the screen of his mobile, nods sadly. “Sucks, though.”

Louis bumps his shoulder into Harry’s before grabbing his hand. He whispers something into Harry’s ear and clears his throat. “Should we throw a, like, whatsit?”

“A farewell thing. To say we’re going to miss Ray, that we love her,” Harry adds, sucking in his lower lip as he gives Louis a pointed look.

“That she’s important,” Louis agrees, giving Harry’s hand a tight squeeze.

“Yeah,” Liam adds, nodding. “Okay.”

Zayn lights up a cigarette and pockets the lighter. “Sure.”

Niall looks up, considering the four of them. “You all are just—whatever. I’m inviting Barbara, in that case.”

“Invite her anyway, donut, we’ve been telling you to for ages,” Liam points out.

Niall snorts and kicks the back of Louis’ knee. “You lot are ridiculous. All of you all.”

Zayn grips Liam’s wrist, and Liam gives him a bright-white smile.

***

Liam helps plan it with gentle suggestions from Zayn, while Niall calls out his favourite foods. Harry and Louis sit to one side more often than not, earning wordless glances from Zayn. Occasionally he buys the two of them a basket of chips that they halfheartedly share until Niall steals it while they stare at one another.

After a week of planning, Liam presents his ideas to RayRay and her wife, offering to (as Zayn suspected) crowd-source funds to throw a going-away bash. Zayn sells the bike Liam repaired and promises to cut back a bit on cigs so he can contribute the leftover cash.

Liam crushes his lips against Zayn’s temple and mutters declarations of love and silly sentences about longing. He ends the speech with an errant crotch-grab, though, so Zayn flushes for more reasons than one.

***

“Good turnout?” Harry asks, hip-checking Zayn and offering him a chip laden in grease.

“Town’s not that big, Haz. Turnout’s what it is.”

“Turnout’s good, Zee.”

“And you’re hanging by me because?”

“You’re my friend.”

“H. Come on.”

“It’s just like, I mean—”

“Lou’s back from the loo and he asked where you were, okay,” Zayn says, nicking another chip from Harry.

Harry sucks in his lower lip. “Be back.”

As Harry vacates, Liam lowers himself onto Zayn’s skinny-legged lap. “Couples,” he notes, ducking his head neck to Zayn’s shoulder, pressing a kiss to his neck. “Can’t have it.”

“Disgusting.” Zayn laughs a bit, wriggling against Liam’s warm body. “Good thing we’re the way we are.”

“Good thing we’re perfect.”

And perhaps it’s a good thing they are just the way they are, and used to be the ways they used to be, and got to see each other through it. He spies Louis and thinks that Louis is definitely most probably too big for a small seaside town, thinks that Harry is going to follow him to the spot where the stars burn out while Niall makes a go if it _wherever he finds himself_ because he could end up on Saturn and be just fine. But Zayn thinks he himself will only be okay making a go of it with Liam, wherever that may be.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: musiclily
> 
> Come yell at me :D


End file.
